Gakemichi
by Hatur
Summary: AU. TsumeHiashi. CompFic to Kakuremichi. There is the easy path, there is the blood covered path. And there sometimes is a path beside a cliff.
1. Prologue

_**A/N:**_** This story hit me after around three years of inactivity. It came along the voice of the singer Djordje Balasevic, with those songs that sound happy to the ears of strangers but taste so bittersweet to those that have lived what he writes about. I always thought that there must have been so much tragedy in Hy****ū****ga Hiashi's life, even more than what was depicted in the manga and the anime. And I felt it is the same case with Inzuka Tsume. Kiba once said, with a bit of humour, that she had made his father literally run away. And somehow, it couldn't be just as simple as that. And what about Hana, with her long glossy brown hair, her eyes so soft and deep, and her calm demeanour? She is so unlike her whole clan. I felt there could be a nice story, a sad, tragic story that left living protagonist, scarred and broken. It is greater than anything I have ever imagined (not that that is much though). **

_**Warning:**_** I am rating this story T for now (it is definitely an M though), because I want it to be read, not because I am a great author, I simply am not, but just because it flew outside of me and gave birth to itself (and well I doubt a lot of people are looking for M rated Hiashi/Tsume). I feel like I have not even written it by myself and that it desires to be read and maybe cried upon and maybe just patted on its head. It seems this story wants to be comforted. Therefore, there is no place for social values in this story. It is the story of a man and a woman that have a six-year gap between them, that are living in a time of war where everything goes too fast and that find themselves choked by their responsibilities as heirs.**

_**Disclaimer:**_** I do not own Naruto (I haven't even read a chapter or watched a show for 2 years at least).**

:: Prologue::

The soft rain caressing his skin, his smouldering skin covered in invisible scars. He had loved the rain back then, when he had had still enough hope to whisper passionate obscenities laced with something as frivolous as love. Whispering to an ear, gently covered by the softest, harshest locks of brown hair his lips had ever brushed over. And she would always laugh, that feral yelp of a beast coming to crash on his eardrum.

"Kiss me, kiss me till I want to vomit" she would answer, aware that it would have cooled down the pretentions of any man but him. She could not cool him down with words when her wild laughter filled his whole being with the promise of maddening delights. And whenever such words would cross her callous, chapped lips, her teeth, with their canines as sharp as kunais – no, as a butcher's knife, would come to assault him, leaving bruises, cuts that faded leaving nothing but heavy, invisible scars, to be borne for the eternity of a human life.

Konoha's streets were empty. Rainy days were not ones to attract crowds. But this street, so narrow, made of razor-sharp rocks that would cut the feet of strangers, had never really attracted crowds. Yet he ambled across this path, this long path of wrath and misery, always gray and abandoned. The smell of poverty slithered across his haori, made of raw silk, the best that could be found. He did his best to restrain his weakness that expressed itself in the form of a shiver of disgust. Years of luxury and praises had made him very easily moved by what he was always taught to consider as shame. How long has it been since he had been able to bow his head to an elder, whatever his status in this rotten, broken society was? Oh how she had loved him for that. She was so strong, he remembered, that she never had the need to filter and veil her emotions and sentiments. They had never been a weakness to her, as they were to him. Whenever he would bow to an old woman, wearing a crumpled, torn yukata, calling her obaa-san, with respect due to a Hokage or an ambassador, she would kiss him with the tip of her lips. A velvety caress full of sadness at the idea that one day she would become an old woman as well, broken and bent to the ground and that he would bow to her with the respect due to a Hokage or an ambassador, judging her by her years and all she must have accomplished. And she did not cower away from him; she displayed her emotions to his eyes, to the eyes of the world. And he did not let judgement blind him as it did today, he offered his hands to all the dirty children in the streets, to all the peasants and beggars. He had changed though. She had not.

He stopped his steps. In front of a great, gloomy iron gate, held by aged, crackled walls. In red her name overhanging, as a sentence of death, a phlegmatic judge, eyes sightless to all the sentiments that their beings had harboured. However, in the end, it had been his name, burning and icy, that had cut the red thread that had been linking them since the first time she had launched herself at the neck of another man.

"You have to lift your arms like this. Yes, like this, higher! And now twirl! Good! If we do this plenty of times, the rain will become stronger, even stronger and stronger and it will wash away all the bad feelings, and the dirt and the sadness ..."

"And kaa-san will be happy, ne, nee-san?"

"Okaa-san, might not be happy, otōto, but the rain will help her fever, it will battle all the fire inside of her body, and the tears will mingle with the droplets. She will be better and it will hurt less ..."

"Promise, nee-san, promise me that after the rain it will be better. Everything will be better."

"It will, if we dance and if the rain becomes stronger. So strong that it will engulf us whole, otōto. And then, we will be reborn again. It has to be better."

Children. He turned his head towards them, his hair so heavy, as if attempting to persuade him not to look. What would children be doing, in the middle of the rain, at this time of the day, their little feet bare on this sharp path of wrath and misery? His eyes locked with hers for an instant, before a cloak of brown blurred her image.

She turned, she twirled. Under the rain, biting, tearing rain. Oh memories. The crimson, threadbare at some spots, cheap fabric of a yukata, damp and clinging to prickly shoulders of a child. A fog around her whole form. Her feet, small and blushing from pain and cold, stepping from one side to the other, making circles, half-circles, kicking and curving. Her yukata opening around her knees and becoming a round, crimson hibiscus, giant in the fog.

Her name rang in his ear, a feral laughter was hoped to be heard. Staggering, he approached that devil that crossed time to come haunt him once again. He walked tiredly through the rain, his glance blinded for the second time of his life.

They noticed him. The girl that danced as a ghost through those crystal droplets that were finally bringing his sanity down and this other little, unnecessary thing by her side, that mocked her movements. They both stopped at the sight of this newcomer, stranger that appeared as an oni from the abysses.

The hair was too glossy, too shiny under the rain. It was not edgy and sharp, like barbed wire. It was not a demon of time after all.

"Hey, who are you, jii-san?"

A dwarf came to take place in front of him, tiny fists on his waist, looking up with a smug expression. It was a boy with slitted pupils and full of courage. The type that would die young, a smile stretched across his lips at the thought of a princess he would have never conquered.

"You are Hyūga-sama, am I right?"

The apparitions stretched one of her ethereal hands and placed it upon the shoulder of her acolyte in mischief.

She pushed her junior into her own bow. She was respectful, a calmness and coolness escaping her being. She was not her. She was not her. How he had wanted for this child, a little child at that, to be her under the rain once again!

"What the hell, nee-san! I don't want to bow to this old fart, don't even know him ..."

Even if these children were too young to present the traditional tattoos of their clan, the feistiness in this little boy, who could have been disposed of in a flick was enough to label them.

She straightened from her bow, raising her eyes to him without any fright. Her eyes were not normal, at least not for her clan. The pupils were not slitted as those of that imp that glared at his elder without any shame. In fact, they were completely invisible in the dark depths of her orbs. It was so unusual; in fact it was absolutely not characteristic of her clan.

"An older sister should apologize for the bad behaviour of her junior."

His voice kept the composure that his new attics did not seem to present. What would the people say if they knew that he had escaped the guard of his very own servants to sneak out under the rain? What would she have said if she had known that he now cared about the image others had of him? She already knew. She saw him every other day, darting her slitted, dark, warm pupils, so similar to those of this impolite brat, at him and crying silently at everything they had lost and at everything they had not won. It is easy to lose, he knew, it is to not win that truly hurts.

"My otōto is free to say whatever he pleases and if he feels like he must apologize, he will do so."

Such coolness, such polite bluntness covered under a mundane smile that suited anybody chilled him to the bone, not that it was something he was not used to as it was his very own trademark. But to believe that a daughter of such family, renowned for its short-tempered sons, would brush it off with such strong elegance, her voice even and uninterested, enraging!

He extended a hand from under the sleeve of his haori and grabbed her chin fiercely. She did not budge nor did she seem perplexed at his act. The one she called brother however emitted a guttural sound that resembled a dog's growl.

'Another rabid dog, how filthy ...'

Since when did such reflections become his daily companions in age?

"You as well should learn that some remarks can be accepted from adults but not from children, girl. Name?"

"Get your filthy hands off my sister, old man!"

Just one glare from the side was enough to mate that puppy that had dared exhibit his baby fangs at him. It cowered away at once, its neck burying in his shoulders. It was not a damp and lost man those two little monsters were facing now, it was a specimen of a lost race of men. Just one glance was enough to make all walls crumble.

Tightening his grip on the girls jaw he raised an eyebrow, expecting the same fright to deform her features. There indeed was a shiver that crossed her nose and made her scrunch it for an instant, yet it was not terror of the unknown, it was only acknowledgement of an elder, in her very own unique and poised way.

"Inuzuka Kiba and Hana."

As expected. That kid Kiba was a real poster boy for the Inuzuka clan. Nevertheless, an unbreakable knot formed itself in his throat, cutting his breath. Paroles from the past came back to him.

"_Woman, if I ever have a child from you, her name will be Himoto."_

"_I will never have a child from a man like you, and if ever the unbelievable happens and a mistake is made, well ... he will be named Kenshi."_

"_Why would you name a child 'swordsman'? What a way of pressuring a little boy to become an ANBU ..."_

"_Mister ANBU, you will be the pushiest father that exists on this world! There is no need for a name for that kid to become an ANBU, if he has you as father ... And anyways, what type of name is that, 'Himoto'? 'Origin of a fire' ... What fire? Pretty suggestive if you ask me ..."_

"_What does a fourteen-year-old brat like you even know about those 'suggestive' things?"_

"_Hahaha ... More than this twenty-year-old grandpa ... Do you think your ANBU boyfriends would appreciate to know when you lost your virginity?"_

It had only been with her that he had been able to have such meaningless conversation, only with her, since the very day they met. Even with the age difference, it had never meant anything in the end.

Yet, this boy was not named Kenshi but Kiba, Inuzuka Kiba, her first son. And the girl with that expressionless, composed glance of hers, that sly pupilless pool of shadows was not Himoto, but Hana. Hana, heiress to the Inuzuka clan.

He released her chin, letting his hand fall to his side. His eyes were unreadable and the rain drowned them. If he had not been known enough, one could have thought that he was crying.

The soft long locks of brown hair, the eyes and the height of this child that never had peeled off her eyes from his, everything betrayed the sin.

"It is amazing how filthy Inuzuka can be. For an heiress such as you, to be permitted to escape the watch of guards and play in the mud at such time, under such weather. It is to be expected that such a clan cannot gain any respect ..."

He had wanted to hurt her, to see the Inuzuka in her. He had wanted an outburst to appease him, to make the taste of bloody sin leave his tongue. Yet, the only thing he managed was to provoke this other insignificant second-born that took a step forward, roaring like a rabid beast. If the arm of the girl had not wind around that uncontrolled puppy's neck, he might have been bitten.

A snarl of abhorrence crossed his lips. Sin tasted horridly bittersweet. He turned his heels, jaw clenched not to howl to the moon that started appearing through nightly clouds. There was not enough rain to wash away all the pain and the sadness.

"You see, otōto. I told you everything would change, all of a sudden. I was right wasn't I?"

"But nee-san, he said he hated us."

Her laughter was not Inuzuka either, as he heard it from afar, when he had already reached the end of that long path of wrath and misery.

"But he talked to us, he did not ignore us."

And the last thought he had, the last sinister thought before turning the corner was:

'Hopefully those children will not blabber about me. Nobody would believe them anyways."


	2. Chapter 1

_**A/N:**_** Here goes chapter number one! Yeah! Well, as expect from a love story between Hiashi and Tsume, it does not and will not evolve rapidly. However ... I really badly want to write the Hinata/Kiba part ... very, very badly because they are the ULTIMATE LOVEY-DOVEY COUPLE! HINA/KIBA FANGIRLS (the feminine is used here to be neutral, it is not offensive xD) UNITE! As you see, I am smitten with that pairing, therefore, instead of incorporating their love story in my very slow and descriptive life of our favourite older Shinobi, I might (I WILL) write a companion fic to this one that will start when Kiba and Hinata are eighteen and will depict how the story repeats itself and of course, their parents will have a great role to play in it ...**

_**Warning:**_** Well there is none really for this chapter. I actually realized that this story was pretty much T, besides a few chapters that will be M, but eh I'll just inform you guys then.**

_**Disclaimer:**_** I don't own Naruto, but heck would I love to own the Hy****ū****ga (besides Hanabi) and all the Inuzuka.**

:: Chapter 1 ::

Age had no importance was he always told. It was true. When an enemy attacks, he never asks of your age, he never wonders if your mother might be waiting to tuck you in, in a far away country. It was repulsive to think that one could attack someone younger than him; it was so repulsive to his little self-righteous, disciplined soul. And yet, it was the truth of this world. If it hadn't been the truth, his mother, his beloved mother, soft iryōnin who bent down an instant over a dying husband would have never lost her head in the swift movement of a katana.

He still remembered how she could not harm any being. She would always tell his father:

"_I am an iry__ō__nin, a false ninja. I do not kill, I heal. I am a traitor in my very own way."_

And what a traitor! She had no right to die; she had no right to leave them all alone. However, once again, the enemy does not ask about every person's rights to remain alive or not. If he did, he would be no enemy but a policeman from the Uchiha clan.

"Hiashi, don't tell me you are crying again, all by yourself?"

Quickly raising his large sleeve, he brushed it over his eyelashes.

"I am not crying, Hizashi. Heirs don't cry ..."

He turned his head; making that cumbersome hair he must grow slap him right across the eyes. He had started to feel uncomfortable around his twin since their parents' death. The further the boy was from him, the easier he could breath. It was quite amusing, in a very ironic way, to believe that not so long ago they would not leave each other's side. Whenever their grandfather would order for them to split, Hizashi would look up at him cheekily, stating that a true bodyguard never leaves the side of his master. Horridly would he pay such words, but Hiashi would always butt in, walking towards their grandfather, staring and glaring.

"_You have no right to punish __**MY **__bodyguard. It is to me to judge what is offensive coming from him!"_

How their father, that would always be leaning on a door, here or there, would laugh at their impudence and especially at his own father's bewilderment. He would always take it upon himself, like the good father he was, to teach both his sons, whatever their status was, what respect meant. They would finish like bloody heaps in the backyard of the Hyūga Main House, coughing blood and sometimes teeth, their laughter transformed into a gurgle.

But he was dead too. Their father was the faulty one of their mother's death and they should not pity his loss. Even if Hizashi mourned for their father more than for their mother that never found the strength to hold him ... Why he did so, Hiashi did never grasp. For the simple reason that even if they were each other's reflection in a mirror, even if they had spent six years together without ever leaving each other's side, they simply did not belong to the same world.

They were Master and Servant, not equal brothers in the eyes of this society. One was more precious than the other. One was to be a mind, the other a tool.

As soon as the fatal words of death had chimed at their ears, they were siblings no more. Hiashi followed without any rebellion the orders that fell upon his being. He did not become leader; he refused the title until he turned twenty-five, advised by his grandfather. He was nothing but a child, a seven-year-old boy that had yet to attend the academy but that had been trained by the whole Hyūga clan. A seven-year-old boy that could kill an experienced Jōnin. A child that had cried for the past year, alone in his room, when nobody could hear him and that had begged for his mother to return. He lived nightmares like any other child, he was scared, but his demons might have been different from the bonesetter.

There was no place for brotherhood in the Hyūga clan. People died every day, they disappeared, they were replaceable. And Hiashi did not want to have his replacement by his side every instant of his life reminding him how he could be the next to vanish. There was no sign that Hizashi could bear, no humiliation he could undergo that would have made Hiashi the same laughing brat he was only a year ago.

"Hizashi, leave. Your duty is finished for the day."

Hizashi, leaning on a door like their father would have, and Hiashi seated on a tatami, here and there, straight like an arrow, just like their mother used to be.

"Don't forget, Hiashi, shinobi don't cry."

Hyūga Hiashi, the genius heir of the Hyūga clan, was seven years old when he killed his first enemy, himself. Yet, even if he broke all sentimental links with any member of his household, he never forgot what his role as future leader would be. The short time all Hyūga had granted on this world should be in peace and hope whenever they cross the entrance gate.

He realized he had been born to serve, would it be the Bunke or the Sōke. All Hyūga had certain rights, all Hyūga had a value, whatever that value was and every one of them was alive.

At age seven, Hiashi quit being a son, a brother, a grandson. He became a leader, a true leader even if the title was yet to come. He sacrificed his all to serve the life of all these people, slaves and masters.

It might be true that outside age doesn't matter, it might be true that an enemy is an enemy, but there must be a place where everyone can go back and lay on the grass, look up the sky and say that he feels well. Somewhere inside of his seven-year-old heart he believed that any enemy of the Hyūga clan had such a refuge. Therefore he promised himself that he would become the irreplaceable sun that glowed above the compound, that he would protect this haven if he could not protect his kin. Because it would not be fair that the righteous and the just could not have the same benefits as the violent and wicked. It was somewhat of a simplistic philosophy that only later would comprehend that enemy of some meant heroes of others.

Nevertheless, Hyūga Hiashi was such a hopeful person. He believed. And he cried, for the last time, because all great decisions have to be sealed with tears. He would become a pillar of strength for all the Hyūga that had to go towards death, like his mother had.

Inuzuka Tsume was born six years after him and while he was building his character she was still staggering on her toddler feet, trying to catch the tail of one of those dogs that seemed to enter and exit the rooms she was inhabiting whenever they pleased.

Six years had been enough to make them see the day in two completely different periods. At age six, Tsume did not think of her clan or of her family, really. She thought of herself, selfishly.

No one could have blamed her though. Absent parents that whenever they would appear would spread violence and misery around them. How many undeserved beatings had she endured from the hand of those that should have cherished her! Nobody ever told her she had to behave herself or that she was an heir, or anything that implied a special status with responsibilities.

Nonetheless, whenever a spurt of anger struck a member of the leading family, torment would fall upon her. Inuzuka were not renowned for such discipline that implied hierarchy, and the raising of their children was quite questionable as well.

In fact, she spent most of her time between the tatami in the living room and the outdoors. Her only companions, as soon as she left her mother's breast, that never had enough milk to nourish her, were those dogs that slept all over the Inuzuka compound, that bickered for a piece of raw meat or even for something as silly as a piece of fabric on which to lay puppies.

It is at the late age of four that she said her first words that some of the normal, non-inebriated members of the Inuzuka clan managed to inculcate her.

"_Give me eat." _

She had passed her rite of initiation and the puppies and beasts were replaced by more ferocious creatures, the Inuzuka children.

She was scooped up one morning by a tall boy, eight years her elder, an academy student, one that was near graduation, surrounded by his tribe of loyal followers.

"_So ya're Tsume-hime?"_ he had asked, a smile of derision perceivable in his rough voice. His hands around the collar of her torn clothing and his rough endeavours were the most understandable paroles any Inuzuka could have spoken. He was signifying her that he was the leader of that tribe trailing his steps and snickering in pleasure at the sight of that diminutive child being pushed around, as they all have been in their time. He was the alpha male and she would be better to bow her head.

However, all the time deprived from any type of human contact and the nature of her character did not make an easy nut to crack from little Tsume. In reality, as any member of the leading family, she was suffering from a definitive complex of superiority that extended to tyranny. And there was no one, whatever his age was, that was allowed to give her some attitude.

And that poor boy that did not know his misfortune would learn what it meant to grab someone like Inuzuka Tsume.

Indeed, in no time, he had a bleeding nose from a decently powerful elbow punch and bite marks on the hand that had dared touch her clothes. To the surprise of all, that tiny nothing of a puppy had dared raise its minute fist in front of the leader. To the surprise of the leader himself, a certain passion invaded him, something he had not felt since his first bicker with a genin. He gave her a beating. He was older, height years older, and stronger, almost a genin and accompanied by two beastly soldiers that did not appreciate either for their master to be humiliated in such a manner.

And when she was nothing but a bleeding heap of flesh, he barked harshly for all his followers to disperse leaving him alone with that stubborn imp that had never loosened the contraction of her jaw to let escape a moan of pain.

He seized the back of her neck and pulled her without any pity through the muddy paths of the Inuzuka compound. Rain started pouring from the skies. On him, Tsume and his two puppies.

Arriving in front of the main house, he released her while she spat blood and maybe even a tooth or two. Kneeling in front of her, he gripped her chin and raising it, turning it from one side to the other, while his slitted pupils examined all the damage done.

"_Ya'll swell. Hope that this was a good first lesson. Never attack someone stronger than ya, Tsume-hime, or else ya'll get beaten up."_

The only answer he received to his kind advice was a muffled growl, which made him laugh. A true, loud Inuzuka laughter, with fangs glistening in the rain. However, this outburst of joy did not last all that long, it was replaced by a frown in no time. And maybe some sadness that could break through his narrow, dark pupils. Yet, Tsume's younger years did not make a very sensitive person out of her, therefore she did not feel any need to soften her harsh gaze, the hateful gaze of a beaten straying dog.

"_One day, ya'll become a leader. Better ya know what they think of us out there. They think we are filthy, Tsume-hime, disgusting beings that bath in sin. We're not fit to be shinobi, they say. One day, soon, ya'll get out there and they won't be no different to ya, just because ya're an heiress. Remember that, Tsume-hime. They'll think ya're no good and whatever good ya'll do, they will think it is out of luck and will push ya back into the filth. That is why ya're the leader, Tsume-hime, to change everything. I always wanted to be the leader, ya know, Tsume-hime ... But it is my luck that ya'll a girl. Ya'll grow and become the leader, and I'll marry ya and we will change it all. We'll prove that we are worth the trouble; we'll prove the Inuzuka's are worth the trouble. That's my dream, and I'll make it happen with ya. Ya hear me, Tsume-hime, ya hear me ..."_

He gripped her shoulders so fiercely. None could be aware how it was thorny for a twelve-year-old boy to ask a four-year-old girl in marriage, whatever the reason was. Their eyes for an instant melted together and if she had not understood all the words, Tsume grasped the violent feelings that inhabited this boy for the reason that they were something she had experienced b herself. The smouldering desire of acknowledgement . And in her first upsurge of rebellion against this world she did know but that already left a bittersweet taste of blood on her tongue, she opened her small mouth that now lacked a tooth or two to express her first law, and one that would prevail in the Inuzuka clan, over all the others:

"_Give me eat." _

Her first selfish request. One that gave birth to a being as contradictory as moon and sun were different.


End file.
